


You Like Despairing

by anticyclone



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Balcony Sex, Blow Jobs, Casual Sex while Secretly Pining, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, M/M, Partially Clothed Sex, Pining, Semi-Public Sex, Tearing clothes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:02:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: Aziraphale calls him, "Crowley, my dear," and his hands tangle back in Crowley's hair, sweeping errant curls from his face. His fingertips brush the mark at Crowley's temple. It feels accidental, until Aziraphale's thumb settles back there, stroking, the edge of his nail tracing one of the serpent's twists.Every few decades, a demon runs into an angel. Half as often, they end up tangled together. This part of the Arrangement is just about not losing it in isolation on Earth. That's all. If sometimes a demon wishes an angel would stay with him until sunrise, well. (Crowley doesn't know it, but all he needs to do is be patient.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 100
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	You Like Despairing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinlizzy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/gifts).



> The end notes are story-content footnotes, generated with thedeadparrot's handy Footnote Formatter: https://codepen.io/thedeadparrot/full/mdyXyzw

Crowley presses a kiss to the back of Aziraphale's hand, his own long fingers wrapped around the angel's wrist with starving desperation: that is, his touch light, his fingertips pressed together against each other and not Aziraphale's skin, his grip so loose as to barely suggest its presence. The best way to keep Aziraphale with him is to ensure the constant option of easy escape. The illusion that Crowley is, in no way, attempting to hold him in place.

Crowley brushes his skin against Aziraphale's. Suggests that the angel turn his hand over, which he does. Aziraphale is sometimes obliging. When he thinks he can be. When he can't resist it. Crowley does his best to answer it tenfold, as he can't in simple speech.

He takes in a needless breath and tastes the remnants of syrupy peaches on Aziraphale's hand, the clarifying wash of clear water. With his free hand he reaches up to push away the froth of lace at the end of Aziraphale's sleeve, to lay bare his wrist.

Aziraphale nearly whines at the touch of Crowley's lips over his pulse.

Funny things, bodies. They've been here for more thousands of years than Crowley cares to contemplate, and sometimes bodies still surprise them. There's no _reason_ for Aziraphale to have a pulse. And yet here it is, just under Crowley's lips. Fluttering. Thrumming. There it is, as Crowley kisses the angel's wrist again.

Crowley hears rustling fabric and glances up. Aziraphale has lifted the hand Crowley isn't clutching. He's curled his fingers in and pressed one knuckle in between his teeth. It means his mouth is open, his lips rest on the skin of his hand. Aziraphale's mouth is flushed. From this angle, on his knees, the angel's eyes are shadowed over. They glimmer black in the light leaking out from the manor behind them. There's a bright yellow window half a foot above Aziraphale's head. The glass is a perfect, pale circle.

"Angel," Crowley purrs, winking past his gilded red-and-black half-mask. "Do your human friends know you're painted on their chapel ceiling?"

"Oh, you old serpent," Aziraphale protests, his throat and cheeks going pink.

His mouth has left his knuckle wet. Crowley has the sudden urge to press his own mouth to the same spot. But he can't, not on his knees, not with Aziraphale waving his hand around as if he is actually offended.

It's funny. In the ha-ha way, not the oh-huh way that millennia-old bodies are. Crowley indulges himself in the oh-huh way. He nudges the wrist still in his grip so that Aziraphale turns his hand back over, possibly expecting a supplicating and chaste kiss to the back of his hand again. But that wouldn't be funny in any kind of way at all. What Crowley does is open his mouth and suck one of Aziraphale's knuckles between his lips. He slides his tongue directly across Aziraphale's skin. The brightest scent is of clear water, but he catches syrupy peach underneath.

He hasn't touched a glass all night and feels drunk down to his toes when Aziraphale whines. Not nearly, but definitively.

"How do you-" Aziraphale's breath is thready, between his words, and he's gulping like he actually needs the air it'll bring. "How do you even know what the chapel ceiling looks like, Crowley?"

Crowley grins. "I have my ways."

"You were spying on me through the window," Aziraphale says, to himself. "I knew that wasn't a shadow."

"I spied on you through the window," Crowley confirms. He nips at Aziraphale's knuckle and tugs his hand. "Want something else in my mouth, angel."

" _Crowley,_ for goodness' sake!" Aziraphale gasps.

"If you ask right."

The free hand Aziraphale could be using to bat Crowley's wandering hands away, or to summon a miracle and smite Crowley on the spot, latches instead onto the balcony railing at their side. Aziraphale does absolutely nothing but purse his lips becomingly as Crowley undoes the laces of his clothes to free his cock. The head of the angel's cock is already wet, and a tiny miracle, barely worth counting, makes Crowley's hand just as wet as he wraps it around Aziraphale's thick shaft.

Funny things, bodies. Aziraphale's cock is more than familiar at this point. Crowley's thought about it enough, even when Aziraphale isn't around (especially when Aziraphale isn't around, since thinking about it while he _is_ has proven to have potentially embarrassing consequences). Being allowed to get this close to Aziraphale shouldn't still be shocking at this point, should it? It shouldn't send surprise crackling through his neurons and yet somehow it does. Crowley asks himself this question every time and fails to answer it just as often.

It's hard to tell himself he shouldn't be shocked that he's being allowed to do _this._ When what _this_ is, is to slide his hand down to Aziraphale's base and close his lips over the end of Aziraphale's cock.

"Oh - Oh my dear. Crowley," Aziraphale says.

There's a sound like his head thumping back against a stone wall. There are sounds like a party still raging inside a manor with its own private painted chapel on the first floor, not too far beneath the balcony where a demon is kneeling for an angel of the Lord.

"Someone could see us," Aziraphale says, squirming.

His clothes rumple around his torso. The froth of lace at his wrists shifts and catches a stream of light from the circular window above his head. His hips move and drive his cock into Crowley's throat, which makes it impossible to answer. Not that either of them complain.

Aziraphale fills his mouth with heat and Earthly flesh and electric shock. Every time. Crowley leans forward as the angel continues to squirm. Soft, pale curls of hair brush the tip of his nose. He would happily keep his mouth wrapped around Aziraphale for ages. For as long as Aziraphale could last. It isn't actually as if he needs to breathe. He can't stop surprise from coiling in his gut, but he can stop his lungs from fussing about a little thing like oxygen.

Keeping Aziraphale in his mouth makes it hard to respond, though. Crowley sucks, until Aziraphale's hand tangles in his hair, and then he pulls back. It forces Aziraphale to make a decision. His decision turns out to be: Slide his fingers through Crowley's hair, so the ribbon holding it back loosens, and long red curls spill over Crowley's shoulders. It's fine. Crowley anticipated that when he chose the snug, glittering black jacket for his costume tonight. Even without confirming it from Aziraphale's expression, he's sure he looks fantastic.

He touches his tongue to his lower lip. Ostentatiously tastes the air, drags unnecessary air to his lungs by breathing it in across his tongue.

"I've got faith in you, angel," he says. Aziraphale's own tongue touches his lips. Crowley smirks, sure Aziraphale's managed to forget his pleading for privacy from just a moment ago. "If you don't want any of your friends to find us, you can keep us hidden, surely."

Aziraphale blinks. "Yes! Of course!" he says, like that's exactly what he'd been thinking.

"Excellent," Crowley says, the _c_ a prolonged _s._[1]

He drags his tongue along the underside of Aziraphale's cock. Keeps his eyes angled up, glinting gold through his mask.

Aziraphale's teeth drag at his lower lip. His throat moves under his collar. His face is still pink, and when he shudders from the teasing of Crowley's tongue, light splashes across his pale eyes.

His angel is so beautiful.

Crowley pushes Aziraphale's long cream coat open at the front, so he can slide his hands around to cup Aziraphale's ass. Aziraphale has on a cream-and-gold half-mask and brocade to match. Someone talked him into dusting his hair with gold powder and Crowley does not at all want to know who got their fingers in Aziraphale's hair before he had a chance to, today.

He pulls Aziraphale towards him and swallows him back down, burying the tip of his nose in the curls at Aziraphale's base. His jaw is slack, relaxed, and Aziraphale writhes in his grip. It drives his cock back into Crowley's throat. Crowley squeezes Aziraphale's ass and hums against his skin, sucking.

Aziraphale calls him, "Crowley, my dear," and his hands tangle back in Crowley's hair, sweeping errant curls from his face. His fingertips brush the mark at Crowley's temple. It feels accidental, until Aziraphale's thumb settles back there, stroking, the edge of his nail tracing one of the serpent's twists.

The stone floor of the balcony is hard against Crowley's knees. Aziraphale strokes the skin at his temple and suddenly Crowley is painfully aware of how hard he is.

_Am I?_ he wonders, blood rushing in his ears. _Your dear?_

He'd add _Prove it, angel,_ but his mouth is full and he's pretty sure if Aziraphale keeps rubbing small circles into his temple like this he's going to come in his codpiece, anyway.

Crowley curls his tongue. Aziraphale's breath catches, and his hips twitch, and his shoulders make a thump against the wall. He spills into Crowley's mouth and Crowley takes it, moving languorously back and forth and gazing up at him, until Aziraphale is all done.

Aziraphale lets go of his face, then, allowing his hand to slide away from Crowley's hair. He stops touching the mark at Crowley's temple.

It's probably for the best.

Crowley licks his lips and falls back on his elbows on the stone floor. He'd cross his legs for the simple casual appearance of it, but that would hide the fact that he's still hard. Instead he sprawls lavishly, thighs spread, black costume not near enough to hide what Aziraphale's done to him.

"Crowley. Really."

"I didn't say a word."

Aziraphale gives him a stern look. "No, you're quite expressive even without them."

"You're the one with your clothes still undone," Crowley says. He runs his tongue against the corner of his mouth. Watches Aziraphale's eyes slide toward the movement. "Gonna do something about that?"

He does not say _please_ because neither of them ever do. It's a four-letter word. [2]

"I suppose I can't leave you in this state. Who knows what you'd get up to on your own," Aziraphale muses, after a moment. He steps forward. His heels click on the balcony stone. His feet come to rest between Crowley's calves.

The way he's looking at Crowley makes Crowley feel like he's the one who's got his clothes open already. He rolls his head to one side, so his hair ripples over his shoulder. Aziraphale kneels between his legs as if there's a down cushion waiting to receive him instead of gray stone.

He unlaces Crowley's boots by hand. The careful movement of his fingers should not be making Crowley somehow even harder than he already is, but here they are. Aziraphale sets his shoes aside. The way he rolls the hose off Crowley's legs makes Crowley's hips move, but Aziraphale ignores that. He doesn't even have the courtesy to press a kiss to Crowley's newly-bare calves. Just gently strokes the spot behind one of Crowley's knees. Absently.

Then he makes a gesture indicating that Crowley should sit up. Crowley straightens his arms out so he's bracing himself with open hands against stone, and Aziraphale can carefully undo every button on his doublet, one by one.

"What would I have to do to convince you to just rip my shirt open sometime?"

Aziraphale gives him an absolutely withering look. It shoots straight along Crowley's spine and wraps around his cock, just the way Aziraphale's hands are not. Crowley is absolutely positive that he never asked the universe for this many buttons. Not once.

"I know your clothes are miracled, but that doesn't mean they're any less deserving of care," Aziraphale sniffs.

"Just a few buttons," Crowley suggests. He doesn't know why he's doing this. It's slowing Aziraphale down. Except the continued glare on Aziraphale's face is pretty funny, in the ha-ha way. Crowley tilts his chin up and angles his head so Aziraphale can see the serpent mark at his temple, underneath the black-ribbon tie of his mask. "I'll fix it, after."

Aziraphale sighs.

"Ahh, angel. You like despairing of me. S'fun. And, you know. Righteous. Whatever."

There are really only a few buttons left, by then. Aziraphale presses his lips together, relaxes them, sighs again. He holds the front of Crowley's doublet with one hand. Links fingers from his other underneath the first still-fastened button. Then he meets Crowley's gold eyes with his pale blue ones and flicks his wrist.

Crowley jumps, startled. His palms slip on the stone. Aziraphale's grip on his doublet keeps him from moving backward by more than half an inch at most. Heat sweeps up from Crowley's gut all the way across his neck. It had looked like the angel put as much effort into moving his wrist as he usually does with lifting his wine glass, but all the rest of the buttons on Crowley's doublet are now ripped open. Tattered threads hang where before there were carefully measured loops. There's at least one button on the floor between Aziraphale's knees.

"Oh," Crowley says.

"I'm hardly finished," Aziraphale answers, like it's supposed to be self-evident.

"Oh?" Crowley says. He doesn't have any buttons left.

Aziraphale takes the collar of Crowley's undershirt between both his hands. His fingers move. He looks as if he's turning a page in a book: that is, cool concentration has settled into his eyes, and the world could be burning down around him without his notice. Crowley's mouth goes dry before he even realizes that Aziraphale's ripped his shirt clean in half, straight down the front.

The focused look doesn't leave the angel's face. He traces two fingertips down the middle of Crowley's chest. His hand rises and falls with the breaths Crowley doesn't need to be taking. He keeps his eyes down. Trails his fingers to where faint wisps of red hair grow on Crowley's stomach.

"We could have accomplished this without ruining your lovely costume."

"I will fix it. After."

"Hmm." Aziraphale pushes his doublet and shirt down his shoulders. Crowley has to pick up each of his hands in turn so the clothes can be taken off him entirely. Aziraphale reaches around him and fusses with the fabric so that when Crowley puts a hand back down, it's on soft linen instead of cold stone.

"Going to leave the mask on?" Crowley asks, half out of genuine curiosity.

"It's a very … dashing mask," Aziraphale says. Crowley nearly moans. Then Aziraphale smiles, his face lighting up with it, and he adds, "Plucky."

_"Plucky."_

"Yes." Aziraphale taps a fingertip against Crowley's mouth, hanging open in outrage. "You look rather like a highwayman." [3]

"Are you going to fuck me or not, angel?" Crowley growls.

Aziraphale's eyelashes flutter. He touches his fingertip to his own lips. "Oh," he says. "I thought you'd prefer it the other way around, dear."

Crowley does moan now.

Aziraphale slides two fingers beneath the laces fastening a codpiece to Crowley's upper hose. Does that wrist-flick thing again. All the laces snap, and then the codpiece is laid aside and Crowley's cock is free. It feels like he's been hard for half his existence at this point. Aziraphale briefly strokes it up and down with a miracle-slick hand to get him ready, and then the blessed cheater miracles his own hose into a neatly folded pile next to Crowley's shoes.

Crowley would needle him about it except Aziraphale is turning around and straddling him. It means Crowley can't see his face, but it's not a bad view, and it _does_ mean Aziraphale can't see _Crowley's_ face. Or wonder at Crowley looking at his shoulders, hidden still beneath a shirt and coat. The way his hair is just long enough to brush his collar.

Aziraphale reaches underneath himself to position Crowley's cock where he wants it, and then he slowly guides Crowley into himself. It's clear that when Aziraphale slicked his hand he also slicked himself, and the (lack of) speed with which he chooses to work himself down onto Crowley's cock is entirely selfish, to prolong the feeling of being stretched open and to make Crowley suffer, probably.

It is a much worse cheat to miracle himself into not coming yet than Aziraphale miracling his clothes off, but Crowley's never claimed not to be a cheat.

Once Aziraphale is settled, Crowley wraps an arm around his chest. He keeps his other hand flat on the ground, to brace himself upright, and pulls Aziraphale's back up against himself.

Shadows pass along the window above them. The don't-notice-us miracle has to still be in effect, because no one else is trying the doors to the balcony - which Crowley had locked, anyway, with a snap of his fingers as they first came out here. Curtains hide the hall from view and them from any humans seeking space for a similar comfortable relief.

Crowley thinks that and immediately regrets it. But it's true. That's all this is, relief.

Bodies are funny things. Spend a few thousand years with the same ones, while everyone else around you lives and breathes in an eyeblink, and sometimes skin gets so hungry for familiarity it feels like a lake of burning sulfur. Aziraphale is so hot around Crowley's cock and his legs so tight against Crowley's own that it should hurt, but it doesn't. It feels like the first cool breeze in Eden after being flung out of Heavenly atmosphere. Standing alone. Watching Aziraphale on the wall.

Sometimes he flatters himself and imagines that to Aziraphale, he feels like the first touch of sunlight on Earth, welcomingly warming where all the light in Heaven is there just to see by.

He'd never ask, of course. It isn't like he's shared his Aziraphale-metaphor with Aziraphale, either.

This part of the Arrangement is just about not losing it in isolation on Earth, about not boiling in their own skins, desperate for touch, recognition, the reminder that not all things are transient. That's all.

"You know," he breathes into Aziraphale's ear, enjoying the way Aziraphale shudders in his grip, "on the chapel ceiling, you've got your wings out."

"That isn't me and you know it!" Aziraphale complains. He sounds very offended for someone grinding in obscene, slow thrusts along Crowley's cock.

"Mmm, rather think it is." Crowley still has being-obliging to catch up on, so he pushes up, Aziraphale's body taking him back in greedily. He's so snug around Crowley's cock and there's the most incredible, delicate _slap_ sound when their skin meets. "The artist was quite flattering. Perfectly groomed primaries, stunning secondaries."

"Crowley!"

"Feathers all bright white and catching blue from the sky," Crowley says, against the angel's neck. "I remember, Aziraphale. Provided a little human artist with some divine inspiration, hmm?"

"I did not," Aziraphale says, primly.

Crowley kisses his jaw. "Could've fooled me."

Aziraphale hums in response, which makes Crowley's entire body feel like it's throbbing. He nuzzles at Aziraphale's collar. His arm is still slung across Aziraphale's chest, and he tightens his grip unwillingly when Aziraphale rolls back against him. The angel should complain about it. Crowley's holding him too tight. He doesn't, though. He brings up a single hand to press flat against Crowley's arm.

For a moment Crowley pretends Aziraphale's fumbling to hold onto his hand. It's a nice thought.

Then it's - gone. It's not useful, and it's not true. Crowley frequently has use for useless falsehoods, but not now.

He flexes the hand he's got flat in the tangle of his shirt, against the floor. Uses the leverage to push himself deeper into Aziraphale. Aziraphale's nails cut pretty crescents into Crowley's bare thigh and scrape mirrored marks on his arm.

And that's how Crowley climaxes. Aziraphale's legs squeezing his. His nails leaving little marks in Crowley's skin. His hand not clutching Crowley's, but latched onto Crowley's arm all the same. Tiny white spots float in the corners of Crowley's vision. Aziraphale is spread around Crowley's cock and his head is tilted back and he gasps when he feels Crowley coming inside him.

For his part, Crowley takes advantage of having Aziraphale's back to him to kiss the spot where Aziraphale's hair curls over his collar. The white spots tumble against his eyelids when he lets them shut.

The kiss is intimate and soft. Not the kind of thing you do with someone who you see once in a handful of decades and fuck half that often.

Crowley is flushed and sweaty, and the arm he's been using to keep himself upright is starting to protest. He could sit here with his lips at Aziraphale's collar for the rest of the night. His shirt is off, and his coat. It would be next to nothing to unfurl his wings. They wouldn't match the painting on the chapel ceiling. Aziraphale probably wouldn't care. He could stretch his wings out, curl them around the both of them. Keep Aziraphale with him until sunrise…

Aziraphale squeezes Crowley's arm.

Then he slowly inches forward, wriggling until Crowley drops his own arm and lets him go. He rises to his feet and snaps his fingers.

The miracle doesn't just put Aziraphale's clothing back in place, it also redresses Crowley. Although Aziraphale didn't remember to tie his hair back up, so it's still loose around Crowley's shoulders.

Crowley is tightening the knot holding his mask in place when Aziraphale turns around.

"You know I always enjoy your company, Crowley, but please don't go peeking in the chapel windows anymore." Aziraphale brings his hands together in front of himself, fidgeting with his fingertips. "I do have an assignment here, a young man in need of some reassurance."

"Don't worry about it." Crowley lurches onto his feet. "My assignment's all done, so you won't see me again after tonight. Not here."

"…Oh?" Aziraphale's fingers go still for a moment before moving to fuss with his clothing. "Well, perhaps a drink before you go. The family has a splendid wine cellar. I could show you."

"Should probably beat it before certain somebodys see past this get-up." [4]

"Oh." Aziraphale swivels on his heel to watch Crowley walk toward the balcony door. "Next time?"

The door, now miraculously unlocked, swings open to admit one black-clad, well-fucked, despairing demon.

"Sssure thing, angel," Crowley says, without turning his head.

***

Several weeks after Armageddon, Crowley wakes up to an empty bed and the smell of tea.

He calculates how much he does not want to slither out from beneath the sheets vs. how much tea an angel can drink, comes to disfavorable results, and forces himself to his feet.

The flat seems a couple of degrees warmer when Aziraphale's here, a fact Crowley is still puzzling over. There's a heavy white afghan tossed over the bed, that Crowley refuses to use when they lay down and which he somehow keeps waking up entangled in anyway, Aziraphale already awake and elsewhere. The tartan slippers Aziraphale keeps here now aren't in their spot by the bedroom door and the door is cracked.

Crowley leaves his own feet bare and runs a hand through his hair, yawning. The plants in the hall immediately outside the bedroom look lush and radiant. Aziraphale keeps giving them pep talks while Crowley is unconscious. It's going to give them _egos._ Crowley glowers at them. They obediently give him the hint to turn left at the end of the hall.

He finds Aziraphale staring at his evil triumphing over good statue.

"Nngggh."

Aziraphale glances sideways at him. Sips tea out of a small cup. "Good morning. I was just thinking," he says. "About that time you asked me to tear your doublet open."

That, combined with Aziraphale's thoughtful regard of the statue, makes Crowley perk up. "Yeah?"

"Dearest," Aziraphale says.

He casts a significant look at the statue. It is not the kind of look that normally makes Crowley perk up, and he would deflate a little, if he wasn't internally morphing to magma. He's been _my dear_ and _Crowley, dear_ and _my dear boy_ for ages. So have humans Aziraphale's known and treasured, and the milkman, and large fluffy dogs ignoring their owners in favor of ear scritches. Crowley has seen this and has still tucked every single _dear_ directed his way into a vault for safekeeping.

It's only been since Armageddon that Aziraphale's trotted out _dearest,_ like a gem he's been keeping hidden for some time. It melts Crowley's guts and steals his lungs every time. He's pretty sure Aziraphale knows it, too.

Aziraphale continues, "You teased me about a ceiling fresco that didn't even half look like me."

"Mmmph."

"There's a certain gleam in this demon's eye, wouldn't you say?" says the wickedest angel there's ever been. Steam curls up from his cup and brushes his lower lip. "Did you provide a human sculptor with some demonic inspiration?"

"Provide _you_ with some demonic inspiration," Crowley mutters under his breath.

"I'd like to have breakfast first," Aziraphale says. He sips his tea again. "But I could be persuaded otherwise."

Crowley presses a kiss to the back of Aziraphale's neck, where soft curls meet his collar. "Could you now?"

"Yes. But I'm not wrestling. How does wrestling with your wings out even work? They'd get in the way."

Crowley nips at his neck and Aziraphale sucks in a breath. The tea sloshes in his cup, but doesn't spill over. Crowley winds his arms around Aziraphale's middle and rocks his hips slightly more than suggestively against the curve of Aziraphale's ass. "Angel," he says, dryly. "They're not wrestling."

"You would know."

One of them miracles the teacup gone.

Funny things, bodies. Crowley knows for a fact that his should not fit so neatly with Aziraphale's. Their corporations were, literally, not made for each other. If they both shed them and shifted back to some other form - well, that would be a different ballgame. But Aziraphale turns around and takes Crowley's face between his hands, and Crowley can't imagine being kissed by someone else like this. Aziraphale kisses him, and when his lips part, he slides his hands into Crowley's hair to keep him close. Dips his tongue into Crowley's mouth.

For his part, Crowley takes advantage of having Aziraphale facing him to slide his hands down Aziraphale's back. He cups Aziraphale's ass in his hands and lifts.

Aziraphale gasps against his mouth. His hands drop to Crowley's shoulders and his legs lock around Crowley's waist. "Crowley!"

Without sunglasses, Crowley can wink. "I'm the demon who _knows,_ aren't I?"

"Yes, well." Aziraphale's neck is flushed. He adjusts his grip on Crowley's shoulders as Crowley carries him back toward the bedroom. "I suppose I should trust your expertise."

"Oh, yeah. Plenty of expertise here."

"Still, you know what they say." Aziraphale tightens his thighs against Crowley's hips and glances behind himself as they enter the bedroom. Crowley is eyeing the mattress and calculating how much trouble he'll be in for throwing Aziraphale down on the sheets vs. how much Aziraphale would enjoy being pounced on when Aziraphale explains that what he thinks people say is, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

"Absolutely no one says that," Crowley corrects him, and tosses him to the center of the bed.

Aziraphale says "I beg your pardon!" as his shoulders pillow into the sheets, but he also moans when Crowley does in fact pounce on him and pins his wrists to the bed. [5]

Sunrise has already passed, so Crowley can't try to trap Aziraphale to stay with him until then. But he doesn't have to. Since Armageddon, they've agreed that neither of them are going anywhere anytime soon.

**Author's Note:**

> 1. It's fine. They haven't invented spelling yet.↩
> 
> 2. Spelling still hasn't been invented.↩
> 
> 3. Crowley has, of late, actually _been_ a highwayman. But right now he is very distracted, and it doesn't occur to him until much later that maybe Aziraphale actually knew that.↩
> 
> 4. People worth getting robbed by highwaymen tend to go to fancy parties.↩
> 
> 5. So. You know. Win-win.↩


End file.
